Inside DevOps teams: Roles, challenges, and best practices

Want to take your software and processes to the next level? Think DevOps. This approach brings developers, operations, and security into the same room (figuratively, of course) to collaborate from day one, catch bugs early, optimize workflows, and ensure security without slowing down the delivery pace.

DevOps isn’t just a methodology; it’s a mindset that revolutionizes how organizations build, deploy, and maintain software. By breaking down silos between teams, DevOps allows businesses to respond faster to changes, enabling them to outpace competitors in dynamic markets.

DevOps for startups is a particularly powerful enabler, which gives smaller teams the tools they need to automate processes, scale efficiently, and bring innovative products to market faster. By streamlining workflows and removing barriers, DevOps helps startups focus on their core mission: innovation and growth.

DevOps team responsibilities range from juggling development and operations to orchestrating smooth software delivery. Here’s a quick look at what such teams do:

• Implement continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines for faster, more reliable releases
• Drive infrastructure as code (IaC) approach to automate server provisioning and configuration
• Manage servers, networks, and cloud resources
• Monitor systems’ performance and spot issues before they become major problems
• Fix issues and conduct root-cause analysis to prevent their reoccurrence
• Plan optimizations to boost systems’ performance, reduce latency, or prepare for load increase
• Integrate security into DevOps
• Facilitate seamless handoffs between development and operations teams through standardized workflows.
• Foster a culture of accountability and shared ownership across all team members.

In highly regulated fields like DevOps in healthcare, responsibilities extend further. Teams must facilitate adherence to strict regulations like HIPAA while maintaining system uptime and securing sensitive patient data. This requires robust monitoring, proactive threat detection, and fully integrated security measures.

Curious for a deeper dive into these tasks? Here’s a full breakdown:

CI/CD pipelines are the express lanes for software delivery, automating everything from code integration to deployment. This means no manual checks or slow rollouts, resulting in faster, more reliable releases.

An effective CI/CD strategy accelerates delivery and reduces errors by introducing consistent automation. For example, teams can implement automated rollback mechanisms that minimize downtime during deployment issues.

The impact of CI/CD is hard to overstate. According to Google Cloud and DORA’s 2023 State of DevOps Report, faster code reviews — a key part of the CI/CD concept — lead to 50 percent higher software delivery performance

Instead of manually configuring servers and environments, DevOps teams treat infrastructure like code and manage it with scripts and automation. This reduces human error and ensures consistency and reproducibility.

With advanced monitoring tools, DevOps teams can track every detail of an application’s health in real-time, enabling them to spot potential issues before they escalate. When problems arise, these teams dive into logs, piecing together clues like detectives to troubleshoot and resolve hiccups quickly, keeping systems running smoothly.

GitLab’s 2024 Global DevSecOps report revealed that security is number one among top IT investment priorities.

Instead of waiting until a project wraps up to patch up vulnerabilities, DevOps teams bake security into their workflows. From code reviews to automated security tests, they ensure potential threats are vanquished early, creating a secure and polished final product.

Imagine eliminating bottlenecks, boosting collaboration, scaling your systems effortlessly, and enhancing security — all while reducing costs. Love the sound of that? DevOps makes it possible.

One of the biggest advantages of hiring a DevOps team is a faster development cycle. Automating repetitive tasks like testing, deployment, and monitoring eliminates pesky bottlenecks in the software development process.

This extra efficiency enables teams to deliver updates and new features faster, helping businesses respond to market changes and customer demands on a dime.

Rapid development means little if quality is compromised. With DevOps, speed and quality go hand in hand. Continuous integration, testing, and feedback loops ensure that bugs are caught early and code quality stays top-notch.

Rather than scrambling to fix issues late in the game, DevOps teams prioritize constant improvements throughout the development cycle. The result is a smoother release and a product that performs as expected right from the start.

Think DevOps comes with a hefty price tag? Think again. Automating workflows and optimizing infrastructure management reduces manual labor, ultimately lowering operational expenses.

With infrastructure as code (IaC), the risk of human error decreases, operations become leaner, and troubleshooting takes less time — all of which translates to significant savings in the long run.

DevOps prioritizes a culture of open communication and teamwork, where everyone works toward shared goals with clarity and alignment.

Whether you're experiencing rapid growth or navigating sudden demand spikes, DevOps allows you to adapt without breaking a sweat. A DevOps team leverages cloud capabilities and containerization tools (like Docker and Kubernetes) to deploy, manage, and expand systems quickly, ensuring your business stays nimble.

With DevOps security, protecting your systems is a priority, not an afterthought. Security is seamlessly integrated into every development phase, ensuring vulnerabilities are proactively identified and addressed early. DevSecOps teams use advanced tools and practices to meet compliance standards while strengthening system defenses and minimizing risks.

Want rave reviews from your customers? Then DevOps is the way to go. With faster delivery, better product quality, and more responsive software updates, customers get what they want faster and with fewer issues. Regular, reliable, bug-free releases mean customer feedback can be incorporated ASAP, making the product more user-friendly and continuously improving.

"A qualified DevOps engineer is the one who stays a half-step ahead of the industry, applying future innovations today while ensuring no gaps are left behind."

Alexey Golubev, Senior DevOps Engineer and Team Lead

Vention has a long history of working with startups, and these partnerships have shaped our mindset: we’re always ready to propose unconventional solutions and go the extra mile to deliver the best possible results.

Rather than defaulting to big-name tools, we carefully evaluate open-source options when they offer better cost-efficiency or performance. What’s more, we don’t hesitate to recommend custom solutions when they provide a meaningful mid-term advantage over legacy fixes.

Innovation is at the heart of our DevOps approach. For example, we’ve successfully integrated AI technologies to streamline routine tasks, ensuring our clients consistently benefit from cutting-edge advancements.

With DevOps, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. From embedded teams working alongside developers to specialized crews building robust toolkits, each DevOps structure offers a unique blend of collaboration and efficiency.

An embedded DevOps team is a group of engineers who work directly within a development team. They provide constant support with automation, infrastructure management, and deployment processes, making workflows smoother.

A centralized DevOps team acts as an expert pit crew for multiple development teams. They streamline processes, automate workflows, and ensure a smooth ride for everyone. By serving as a shared resource, they bring consistency, speed, and expert knowledge to every project they touch, allowing each team to focus on building great software without reinventing the wheel every time.

A community of practice serves as the ultimate DevOps club where teams collaborate and share their best insights and strategies. It helps spread DevOps practices across all teams, fosters learning, accelerates problem-solving, and builds a unified approach that benefits the entire organization. Adopting new practices becomes more of a team sport than a solo mission.

DevOps platform teams establish a centralized high-tech platform, making it easier to focus on developing high-quality software faster with fewer headaches. These teams build and manage IaC, CI/CD pipelines, and automation tools, giving everyone the same reliable and high-powered setup.

Site reliability engineering teams ensure everything runs smoothly and stays online, no matter what. They work in tandem with development teams to fine-tune performance and fix issues before they morph into problems. Think of them as a behind-the-scenes crew making sure systems are rock solid and always ready for action.

CloudOps/InfraOps teams specialize in managing cloud infrastructure, ensuring that everything from servers to storage operates smoothly. Adding DevOps practices enhances their capabilities by introducing automation, monitoring, and agility, which streamlines cloud management and supports seamless operations and scalability.

On a DevOps team, each role is vital to smooth software delivery. DevOps engineers automate workflows, site reliability engineers ensure reliability and automation architects streamline processes while release managers ensure seamless deployments.

DevOps engineers are highly versatile IT professionals who bridge the gap between software development and operations. Their skill set includes coding, system administration, deployment, and infrastructure management, making them indispensable for creating efficient workflows.

Site reliability engineers combine engineering expertise with operational know-how to ensure systems run smoothly around the clock. Their main goal is to prevent downtime, optimize performance, and address issues before anyone notices. If something does go wrong, they’re the first responders, jumping in immediately to save the day.

Automation architects create strategies that take the manual work out of infrastructure setup, testing, and deployment. From writing scripts that spin up servers in seconds to automating complex testing processes, they make everything faster, more efficient, and less prone to errors.

Release managers oversee the entire software deployment process. They coordinate efforts between development, operations, and quality assurance teams to plan, schedule, and execute releases seamlessly, ensuring no service interruptions.

A cloud engineer manages and optimizes cloud infrastructure to ensure it’s scalable, secure, and cost-efficient. Whether tweaking resources to handle traffic spikes, fine-tuning services to reduce cloud costs, configuring servers, or automating processes, cloud engineers ensure companies can grow without breaking the bank.

DevSecOps engineers integrate security into every stage of the DevOps process. They proactively identify vulnerabilities, implement safeguards, and ensure code remains secure from development through deployment, which makes security a core focus.

QA or testing specialists ensure every feature functions as expected before it goes live. They combine manual and automated testing to identify bugs, glitches, or anything that could disrupt the user experience, ensuring a polished final product.

Building on our experience, we’re not just identifying the challenges DevOps teams encounter — we’re equipping you with practical strategies to tackle them head-on.

Adoption of DevOps can feel like mixing oil and water, especially when in-house teams resist structural changes. Some may cling to their established ways of working, while others struggle with the collaborative culture that DevOps requires.

To mitigate this, leaders should emphasize the long-term benefits of DevOps, such as faster delivery cycles, improved quality, and enhanced collaboration. Workshops, success stories, and small pilot projects can help demonstrate value and ease concerns.

Long ago, when we introduced DevOps at Vention, our leadership championed open communication, broke down silos, and fostered teamwork. Leaders at all levels emphasized how DevOps automation could enhance workflows and elevate software quality. By clearly demonstrating the benefits, we gradually earned buy-in and created a collaborative culture.

The sheer number of tools available to DevOps teams can lead to confusion, redundancy, and increased complexity. In fact, 64 percent of more than 5,000 professionals surveyed for the 2024 Global DevSecOps report said they want to consolidate their toolchain.

At Vention, we’ve hand-picked proven tools that work seamlessly together for different use cases. This not only simplifies workflows but also makes onboarding new team members a breeze and ensures smooth knowledge transfer and best practice sharing.

Meanwhile, we continuously monitor the DevOps landscape to find promising new tools to maintain an edge.

Finding DevOps professionals with the right blend of technical and soft skills can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Upskilling existing teams or outsourcing talent are effective ways to bridge these gaps.

At Vention, we clearly define the technical proficiency, hands-on experience, and soft skills we require for roles like security engineers or automation architects. Our internal initiatives, such as the DevOps Lab, focus on mentoring and skill-building and ensure our teams remain at the forefront of the industry.

Managing complexity in large-scale systems can feel like trying to keep a dozen spinning plates in the air. With multiple services, environments, and pipelines, things can get messy fast.

Ventioneers have a go-to remedy for handling this complexity: automation. By automating repetitive tasks and managing infrastructure through code, our teams can simplify processes and keep everything running like a well-oiled machine, even in the most complex environments.

Some teams perceive automation as a threat and fear it will reduce control or replace their roles.

Vention’s advice? Demonstrate automation enhances workflows, saves time, and shifts focus to higher-impact tasks. When teams see how it improves efficiency and simplifies their work, resistance often turns into enthusiasm.

Inefficient communication can slow progress and create silos, even in the best teams. Keeping everyone aligned is critical for DevOps success.

At Vention, we use tools that keep everyone in sync and let teams work together like a fine-tuned machine — think of dedicated chats for specific projects, project management software, and collaborative documentation tools.

We also adhere to effective communication practices like root-cause analysis without finger-pointing and clear escalation paths.

Measuring DevOps success is nuanced. It's not just about speed but also quality and reliability. To gauge performance accurately, focus on key metrics like deployment frequency, customer satisfaction, and, most importantly, MTTR (mean time to recovery) for a DevOps team. These metrics clearly show how well the team delivers value, responds to issues, and turns out products and services users love.

A combination of technical skills, strong collaboration, and a focus on continuous learning is the key to building a DevOps team that delivers speed, reliability, and innovation.

It’s also critical to establish a culture of experimentation where teams feel empowered to test new tools or methodologies without fear of failure. This fosters innovation and keeps the team agile in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Define clear roles within the team: DevOps engineers, site reliability engineers (SREs), automation architects, and security engineers should each have distinct responsibilities. Distinct responsibilities prevent overlap and ensure efficient collaboration.

Assemble a team with a mix of development and operations experience, as the core of DevOps lies in eliminating silos and enabling cross-functional collaboration. Your team members should also be well-versed in all the tools that are essential for automation and infrastructure management.

Promote a mindset of continuous improvement and shared responsibility, where both development and operations teams are accountable for a project's entire lifecycle, from code creation to deployment and maintenance.

Encourage open communication using tools like Slack, Jira, or Confluence to ensure transparency and alignment.

Upskilling is non-negotiable in the ever-evolving tech landscape. Regular training sessions on the latest tools, security practices, and methodologies will not only boost your team’s capabilities but also foster innovation and adaptability.

If building an in-house team doesn’t feel like the right choice at the moment, or you're looking for alternatives, consider DevOps consulting or DevOps as a service.

• DevOps consulting: Great for getting expert advice on setting up DevOps processes, choosing the right tools, and closing skill gaps. Consulting services give you personalized guidance, helping you make smart decisions without committing to an entire in-house team.
• DevOps as a service: Outsourcing allows you to share your objectives and receive both expert guidance and flawless implementation. This approach provides immediate access to skilled professionals without requiring lengthy hiring processes.

What’s next for DevOps? Picture cutting-edge tools and AI reshaping the way teams build, deploy, and scale software. The next wave of DevOps trends is all about automation, speed, and improved efficiency.

AIOps, or AI/ML in DevOps, uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to transform IT operations by automating problem detection and resolution. It processes large volumes of real-time data to identify issues before they escalate, predict potential problems, and resolve incidents automatically.

This smart automation reduces downtime while freeing teams to focus on innovation rather than firefighting, making IT systems more resilient, efficient, and responsive to evolving demands.

NoOps (No Operations) is an IT approach that automates operational tasks instead of relying on a team to manage them. By leveraging AI, machine learning, and DevOps practices, NoOps streamlines workflows, minimizes human involvement, and enables developers to focus on coding.

The result is a fully self-managing infrastructure where updates, maintenance, and scaling occur automatically, freeing time for innovation and ensuring faster delivery.

As organizations shift toward serverless architectures, the need for robust monitoring and orchestration tools will grow, ensuring that even distributed systems operate efficiently.

Serverless computing and microservices are revolutionizing DevOps by making applications more scalable, flexible, and cost-efficient. In a serverless architecture, developers don’t need to manage infrastructure, as cloud providers handle everything. This allows teams to concentrate solely on coding.

Meanwhile, microservices divide applications into smaller, independent services, which simplifies the deployment of updates and scaling of features.